1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a frit-based hermetic sealing system for glass plates, seal materials, method to apply these seal materials, seal designs for selective and controlled absorption of light to heat and seal the system. These hermetic seals are useful in various applications such as (a) encapsulating solar cells based on silicon, organic systems, and thin film, (b) encapsulating other electronic devices such as organic LEDs (OLED), (c) Vacuum Insulated Glass (VIG) assemblies for windows, (d) touch screen devices and (c) architectural windows and automotive glass based assemblies.
2. Description of Related Art
In many of the practically useful applications of glass to glass sealing, such as encapsulation of solar cells [crystalline silicon as well as thin films based cadmium telluride (CdTe), copper indium gallium selenides (CIGS), polymeric, flexible], OLED packaging, displays, touch screens and Vacuum Insulated Glass (VIG) windows sealing, and architectural & automotive windows sealing, there exists a need to use tempered glasses in many instances. Glasses loose the temper when heated above about 300° C. in conventional furnace firing of sealing glass materials. Therefore, there exists a need to selectively heat the seal material alone and to effect the bonding to the base glasses/substrates without significantly heating the base glasses/substrates. Similarly there exists a need to selectively heat the seal material alone and to effect the bonding to the base glasses/or glass to metal seals without significantly heating the base glasses.
Accordingly, improvements in the art of selective sealing methods such as induction sealing are required.